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Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 October

The Battle of Ideas festival, currently being held at the Barbican in London, was initiated by the Institute of Ideas 12 years ago to encourage free thinking and open-ended public discussion, and is supported by a wide range of partners. The Battle of Ideas festival comprises 400 speakers at 75 debates and satellite discussions confronting society’s big issues and unresolved questions. It affords the opportunity for some clear thinking, rational debate and agenda-setting - above all, it's future-orientated, whilst retaining a healthy regard for the past achievements of humanity.

November 2017

Josie Appleton and others will open a discussion on the rise of the tick-box, tut, tut state and the threat it poses to civil society

The busybody state is a concept that begins from people’s everyday experience encountering the new official in public spaces. This everyday experience is embodied in a genre of YouTube videos in which cyclists, photographers or buskers are shown locked in a dispute with a badged official who is seeking to prevent them from continuing with their activity. The busybody’s intervention appears as unnecessary and unreasonable; the busker’s recalcitrant response as a defence of the essential legitimacy of free public action.